Our country has valued hard work from our founding as a nation. The Puritan work ethic shows itself everywhere. Most working people see “hard worker” as a desirable quality in themselves and others. We often define success by how much wealth we accumulate from all that hard work. What’s wrong with this picture? Back when our country was founded, life expectancy was much shorter. The work ethic we embraced then did not take into consideration that we may live for decades after we retire nowadays. There is a price to nonstop hard work.
Pitfalls Of The Hard Work Ethic
Whether as executives, professionals, or front line employees, we strive daily for achievement, however we define it. And for most Americans, that achievement does not reflect a balance between our work lives and the job of attending to our health. There are many exceptions, but all the collected data on American’s health habits tells us that we don’t get enough exercise (or any!), we eat too much highly processed foods, and we are not managing our stresses very well. The result, as more and more research tells us, is that we develop chronic illnesses and suffer from increasing impairments as we get older. Is that how you envisioned your retirement?
What To Do Differently Now
It makes no sense to live in the fantasy that we can ignore health advice from all reliable sources, whether government, university-based research, or others and expect a happy, healthy retirement. None of these credible sources of information imply that if we keep working hard until the point we choose to stop working that we will be just fine, regardless of failure to take any steps to prevent chronic illness. So, what changes do we need to make? If you are the average hard worker, you have to give up the fantasy. You need a plan, just as you may have developed many plans for lots of other things in your working years. This is a plan to improve your own health.
Two Basic Steps Toward A Healthier Retirement
First, consider that working on your own preventive health strategies is your new job. It can start today or any time you want to embrace responsibility for how your older years are going to go. Now is good! This new job can begin with small changes. Commit to starting with just one thing. You can build from there.
Food
Here’s a place to start. Let’s look at food. So often, we eat mindlessly, and what we are in the habit of consuming. Our grocery stores are full of things in the middle of the market aisles that are meant to attract our attention. That includes lots of junk. For perspective, notice how many bags, boxes and packages of processed food (potato chips, cookies, candy, etc.) you find there as compared with what is around the periphery of the grocery store. Vegetables and fruits, which we know we all need, are smaller in proportion to the rest of what you see. If you pick one thing to change first, make it simple. If you’re in the soda habit, for example, cut down by one or two a day from whatever you’re used to consuming. That may not sound life-changing but you have to start somewhere. And add one thing, perhaps a pre-made salad, that you substitute for one thing that you know is not good for your body. Do that every week and build from there.
Stress Management
Anyone with a high stress job knows what it feels like to face pressure, deadlines, difficult bosses, hierarchy or unpleasant co-workers regularly. It affects us. There is no escaping stress, which is part of daily life. When it is combined with stress at home, there is no doubt that our health is affected adversely. But too few of us use any form of stress management tactics to counter the harmful effects of unrelenting stress.
We hear about meditation and too many scoff at the notion. Likewise, things like yoga or some creative endeavors, deliberately planned walks, or even music as a planned stress reducing technique are ignored. Instead, we are random in any choices that help us relax. Or we turn to too much alcohol or escape with things that have an ultimate deleterious effect on our health. But, there are apps for our phone such as Calm or Headspace that an make it very easy for non-meditators to try something new. For example, the app Calm offers an eight minute session every day. We can all manage that! Walking for 15 minutes, or doing any other repetitive movement can be stress management too. It is not so hard to incorporate one of these into your new job in retirement or retirement planning.
He Paid The Price: The Tearful Wife
I worked as a home care Public Health Nurse for years. During that time, I visited thousands of patients, many of them elders. Some memories of people long ago impressed me so much that I recall them clearly decades later. One that illustrates my message for today was the Crying Wife. Her husband had recently retired. He had chronic heart disease that had suddenly gotten much worse just at retirement time. He was spending most of his time going to doctors, taking treatments at the nearby university hospital and spending his retirement savings on things that Medicare did not cover. She was angry, frustrated and in tears when she spoke to me. “Why did he work so hard all those years?” she lamented. “Now, all we saved for that was supposed to be for travel in the golden years is going to medical treatment and care stuff! He can’t go anywhere anyway”, she said. angrily. Their dreams of a happy retirement were destroyed by health decline and disabling disease. He had done nothing to protect his health.
The Takeaway
Don’t let the Crying Wife become you. Don’t become that person or the “Crying Husband” either. Avoiding their fate is a job over which you and a partner, spouse or significant other have a lot of control. Having a healthy retirement is not a matter of luck. Yes, genetics are a factor but according to experts, genetics are only about 30% of how we age. The rest is about our choices, our habits and what we do with intention. We have only touched on two basics in the job of healthy aging. There are many more to consider. Meanwhile, consider your new job as you approach or reach retirement. Don’t keep trading health for wealth. It’s never worth that trade.
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